I was booked for a TV role and, as usual, did not receive the details for location and call time until the previous evening.
Locations can be anywhere, and you generally have only a rough idea where you will find yourself.
You set off, key in the postcode, and head off. You arrive on location, and throw yourself into whatever group of people you find there, with an open mind as to what you will be asked to over the day.
For this role I had a good idea as to the content because I had previously been sent for a costume fitting, rigged out in a highly glamorous prison outfit, with a jaunty patterned headscarf that the costume ladies had carefully dyed to look sufficiently drab and Russian.
Hair and make up tests were more of a deconstruction than an attempt to transform me into something different. We would be playing prisoners in a grim Russian prison for a brand new big budget drama series commissioned by BBC America (more on that later).
Walking back into a Victorian prison, for the first time since tragic events 10 years earlier had ended my career as a prison officer in real life, put me in a state of emotional confusion.
Walking back into a Victorian prison, for the first time since tragic events 10 years earlier had ended my career as a prison officer in real life, put me in a state of emotional confusion.
HMP Reading had been decommissioned a few years previously, the infrastructure is all as it was, such familiar sights and sounds.
This was the same Reading Gaol that broke the spirit of Oscar Wilde.
Various aspects of my past and my present life were merging, and it was essentially down to me to deal with my emotions and acknowledge how far I had come.
I had been given the tools to survive this moment through hours of painstaking therapy at the home of the amazing Jayne Bell.
Events over the past few years had left me with PTSD. It’s an invisible condition, more often associated with soldiers returning from war zones.
It can blight the life of anyone who has the misfortune to encounter a trauma that challenges and shifts their whole perception of who they are and how they fit into the world.
Avoiding trigger situations is an exhausting way to live, especially when you are so scrambled from whatever left you with the condition. Is it a memory, is it a scent, a piece of music, a voice, or a feeling of not being in control but not knowing why, or how to get out of it.
Jayne had spent weeks pushing me to unpick life as I had known it prior to the events that had led me to need her help.
She had helped me to understand that there was very little I would ever be able to do to change past events. She gave me the mental toolbox to have confidence in my own feelings at any moment in time. She had pretty much given me permission to not be scared of losing control. Giving me that clarity of vision in who I am in the here and now, rather than my tendency to try to fit other people’s expectations of me.
My acting skills served me well in this career path, the ability to convey authority and latent power while diffusing a dangerous situation without the need for physical confrontation was a speciality.
My career in uniform, rather than in costume, faltered and eventually became untenable.
My younger brother Nick found himself on the wrong side of the prison wall, he was serving a short sentence for cultivation of cannabis.
The difference in our personalities became evident, with tragic results. While I confidently dealt with the prisoners and their issues at one prison, he found himself panic stricken and terrified behind his cell door less than a mile away.
He couldn't cope and was failed by the regime that was responsible for his welfare.
This working day on set I found myself in a cell containing double bunk beds identical to the ones used by my brother to take his own life in HMP Camp Hill in 2007.
This cathartic experience enabled me to appreciate the Victorian architecture and take in all the small details of this secretive world behind the prison walls.
Fight or flight reactions are magnified, emotions are all over the place. You are left as a vulnerable shell of the person you are, with little sense of what appropriate reactions are to situations that now make you uncomfortable.
Avoiding trigger situations is an exhausting way to live, especially when you are so scrambled from whatever left you with the condition. Is it a memory, is it a scent, a piece of music, a voice, or a feeling of not being in control but not knowing why, or how to get out of it.
Jayne had spent weeks pushing me to unpick life as I had known it prior to the events that had led me to need her help.
She had helped me to understand that there was very little I would ever be able to do to change past events. She gave me the mental toolbox to have confidence in my own feelings at any moment in time. She had pretty much given me permission to not be scared of losing control. Giving me that clarity of vision in who I am in the here and now, rather than my tendency to try to fit other people’s expectations of me.
It was all I needed to remind myself as I walked through the prison corridors, across the landings and up the steps towards the room set aside for costume and make up.
I was having an internal dialogue as I moved around that location. Yes, I had been a prison officer, but not today, not anymore. Focus on the here and now Jo, who are you today? Embrace the experience today, it’s not the same. Jayne would be proud of you.
Two days filming on that location helped me lay a lot of ghosts to rest as I walked landings and corridors identical to those that I used to patrol in my previous life.
I had found my work as a prison officer to be very rewarding and well suited to my adaptable personality. There are obviously the rigid structures and procedures of the prison regime, but no hour of any day would be the same.
I have always thrived in unpredictable situations that require quick thinking and the ability to assess a situation and act on a moments notice.
The whole world within the prison system is either misunderstood or overlooked by those on the outside. You can be face to face with the worst or best from society, People's lives are in your hands, verbal and nonverbal communication are equally important to ensure that the environment is safe for everyone, be they staff, prisoner, family member or visitor.
I had found my work as a prison officer to be very rewarding and well suited to my adaptable personality. There are obviously the rigid structures and procedures of the prison regime, but no hour of any day would be the same.
I have always thrived in unpredictable situations that require quick thinking and the ability to assess a situation and act on a moments notice.
The whole world within the prison system is either misunderstood or overlooked by those on the outside. You can be face to face with the worst or best from society, People's lives are in your hands, verbal and nonverbal communication are equally important to ensure that the environment is safe for everyone, be they staff, prisoner, family member or visitor.
My acting skills served me well in this career path, the ability to convey authority and latent power while diffusing a dangerous situation without the need for physical confrontation was a speciality.
My career in uniform, rather than in costume, faltered and eventually became untenable.
My younger brother Nick found himself on the wrong side of the prison wall, he was serving a short sentence for cultivation of cannabis.
The difference in our personalities became evident, with tragic results. While I confidently dealt with the prisoners and their issues at one prison, he found himself panic stricken and terrified behind his cell door less than a mile away.
He couldn't cope and was failed by the regime that was responsible for his welfare.
This working day on set I found myself in a cell containing double bunk beds identical to the ones used by my brother to take his own life in HMP Camp Hill in 2007.
This cathartic experience enabled me to appreciate the Victorian architecture and take in all the small details of this secretive world behind the prison walls.
Take deep breaths Jo, look around you, take it all in, appreciate this moment for what it is. Watch the actresses, something very special is being created here.
Watch the stunt team, watch the crew. Live in this moment for now.
Nick would be proud of you, YOU are proud of you, enjoy every minute.
Filming scenes as a supporting artist, if you are going to be successful at it and be booked over and over, requires a discipline to stay in the moment.
The scene is set, people are all placed in position. You have your own individual direction as part of a complex choreography. Mise en scene they call it - it’s the magic of creating an illusion, tiny details matter. You may feel that your actions don’t really matter (especially on a production where you might be treated as if your very presence doesn’t matter - not this production I must add) but your role is to do the exact same set of movements and micro-movements every time the cameras are rolling and the call is for ‘ACTION’.
Everything that is visible on the directors monitor has been placed there for a reason.
Everything that has been moved during the action has to be reset to the exact same position for the next take of the same scene.
My aim each time is simple. I start at one point at ‘action’, go through the same set of movements and expressions at the same points, and if I have done it right then I should end up on the same end spot, doing the same thing, when they shout ‘cut’.
Immersing myself in those simple tasks , sometimes repeated over and over, gives me the satisfaction of a job done well.
I am so thankful to the production company for selecting me to play my small part in this drama. So many parts of life colliding in one situation.
I took the time out to visit the cell that broke the spirit of Oscar Wilde.
I took the time out to visit the cell that broke the spirit of Oscar Wilde.
Said a few words in his memory. He will live on through his work, and life will go on for me with increased determination to seize every moment and appreciate every opportunity.
I came through those days, I survived, I am a survivor.
To be continued
...thanks for sharing Jo xoxoxo
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